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Tuesday, September 14, 2010

After living in twelve places in eight years, Calle Smith finds herself in Andreas Bay, California, at the start of ninth grade. Another new home, another new school...Calle knows better than to put down roots. Her song journal keeps her moving to her own soundtrack, bouncing through a world best kept at a distance.Yet before she knows it, friends creep in-as does an unlikely boy with a secret. Calle is torn over what may be her first chance at love. With all that she's hiding and all that she wants, can she find something lasting beyond music? And will she ever discover why she and her mother have been running in the first place?

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Songs for a Teenage Nomad is a artistic story of music and life as our heroine makes an unlikely difference in the lives of her new found friends and discovers the secret behind her mother’s nomadic ways.

The greatest–and most important–aspect in this novel is the numerous mentioning of songs and artists. While not entirely unique, it helps greatly with connecting to the feelings of the characters. From Bob Dylan to Coldplay, Calle recounts her story from past memories to present circumstances and brings a voice through a teenager’s best friend, music. The book is very poetic, yet edgy in a way that makes the characters shine through the sometimes gloomy events that come to pass. Treading in self-discovery themes, Culberston hits two birds with one stone as she depicts relationships and love in both the high school setting and, at home. Teens will enjoy Songs for a Teenage Nomad because of its simplicity and its whimsical melodic setting of the small, sea-side town. Culbertson is definitely a author to keep an eye on.

Recommendation: Highly recommendable to teen ages 12+.

Content: Some dramatic elements and a few bad words; PG

The Last Straw: A quote from pg. 130:

I hear music under the crash of waves before I see any place that could be producing it. Soon, though, hovering in the distant dark appears a ripple of neon, a sign that becomes legible only when I am standing directly in front of it: Lucky's.

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